Hospital dispute may go back to court
At least part of the battle over the former Brownsville General Hospital could end up back in Fayette County Common Pleas Court. An attorney for the Brownsville Property Corp., the nonprofit group that owns the building and grounds, is asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court not only to allow the lease agreement for the hospital to remain in county court, but for the entire matter to be returned to the county level.
Brownsville Hospital Inc. (BGH Inc.), a for-profit company involving businessman Gary Gosai and doctors Jayesh Gosai, Kamlesh Gosai, Anant Gandhi and Ravindra Mehta, took over the operations of the hospital in January 2005 with the approval of Fayette County Orphans Court.
The for-profit group’s lease with the nonprofit group was contingent upon the continuing operation of an acute care hospital. BGH Inc. voluntarily surrendered its operating license to the state Department of Health in January, and then filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 24.
Under the terms of the agreement and bankruptcy proceedings, the property was to be conveyed to the nonprofit group within 120 days of the termination of the lease. That period ends in May. BGH Inc. has asked the bankruptcy court to extend the time it may remain on the hospital grounds an additional 90 days, until Aug. 24, so it may complete its business there.
“They broke the lease when they stopped being an acute care hospital. We want to get the hospital back so we can try to get someone else in there to run it. There is a desperate need for urgent care in the Brownsville area and that’s what this is all about. We want to get the hospital back open. It may not be at the same level of care as before, but people in Brownsville need urgent care,” said Don Redman, a member of the nonprofit board.
Attorney John Vetica, representing the Brownsville Property Group, points out in his response to the lease extension request that the purpose of the lease agreement was to ensure the continued operation of an acute care facility. He says that the proposed sale of personal property from the hospital could jeopardize future hospital operations and is in violation of a provision of the lease.
“Landlord shall have the right, but not the obligation … to require that all or any of the assets … used in connection with the operation of the premises as an acute care hospital … that were acquired pursuant to the stock purchase agreement be conveyed to the landlord at no cost,” the lease agreement states.
A provision of that portion of the agreement would require the nonprofit board to pay for capital improvements made to the property during the lease period.
Vetica’s response also addresses a request by the for-profit group to sell off personal property at the hospital.
“(The) present effort on the part of the debtor, a for-profit corporation, to reorganize its financial affairs by way of pursuing a plan of liquidation in this court is so contrary to the intents and purposes of the reorganization approved under the auspices of the Court of Common Pleas of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, that this court should remand all further proceedings to that court for the purpose of ensuring the protection of the interests which that court sought to protect and preserve in approving the reorganization on January 13, 2005,” Vetica states in the document.
The matter is scheduled to be heard in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Pittsburgh at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.